The facade of LEE Kwan-Yews perfect Singapore cracks again

Singapore likes to think of itself as the perfect little country that could.

Scrape the thin veneer and it is as 'bent' as HongKong or China.

BICC and six other companies were banned for five years for bribing the deputy of the Public Utilities Board who got 14 years in Changi Jail for his troubles. Singapore is as corrupt as anywhere else in the Far East except they bury their heads in the sand.

Send them over! Cambodia, Laos and VietNam need them, NOW.

THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS after the Americans left VietNam following their loss of the America War in VietNam, people and animals are STILL being killed and wounded by munitions dropped by the Americans.

Remember, Laos was not active in that war. The US just dropped their bombs all over the Plain of Jars. Even today thousands of hectares remain unsafe.

It is heart wrenching to see pre-school aged children missing parts of their bodies that are happening as a result of explosions TODAY.

American bombing often wasn't targetted, either.

Their bombers used to fly in from the Philippines, drop bombs on Hai Phong -- a major generating areas - then overfly Ha Noi dropping a few more mementos on the way.

They then flew towards Thailand crossing over Son La Province and Laos. If the American bombers had any bombs left, they would dump them over Son La Province in VietNam and Laos.

For readers who haven't had the privilege of visiting VietNam, Son La Province is farming country with magnificent mountains. All those hundreds of small 'ponds' you see are actually bomb craters. There are also many unexploded bombs.

The worst bomb these days is the cluster bomb whch scatter small bomblets, some as small as a large golf-ball, that sit there waiting for a foot, or a child, to disturb them. Many are plastic-encased and have extended lives measured in decades.

So a company offers a freebie and promotes it's ow stuff first ...

seems a perfectly logical and fair way of doing business, unless you are in a different political environment where all your in-area people can't offer a free service that competes.

For example, I was a long time member/user of a number of web sites that decided to use Zuckerburg's crappy web site to login in. Since I have never and will never, ever use FB I decided to take my interest elsewhere.

Same applies to Google, I am no supporter of their offerings other than search and maps so I simply don't use their services. At the office all our searches are caught on our network and redirected through a computer that really anonymises our IP, etc.'

Just because MS and others can't better Google that is not a governance problem.

If Google allows it's search to acquire serial numbers for it's very own charged software, it seems to me they are handling things petty fairly. Cheeking the Google take down requests recently it appears tat MS is the largest reqester yet Google still services it's requests.

If someone is so upset with Google search, let them go use Bing and see gow long they stay there.

Dream on, the main thing is it will save electricity companies money, big time. Mo more flat-footed meter readers traipsing from house to house, instant suspension i=of service, etc.

What concerns me more is the physical meter reading displayed by means other than electronics. So often a meter fails and if an electronic version without mechanical displays the data is lost at the point of measurement.

Yes, I know some computer under the control of the supply authority will have data but where is the security i that, for the consumer? There has to be a totally secure method for the subscriber to know their consumption.

The statement "it is also potentially valuable to a whole host of other organisations too" include many elements of government particularly the police and security forces. If the police are building a blimp to spy on UK residents, and GCHQ is monitoring your communications, obviously ACPO would simply love a data feed to enable them to monitor other datasets.

Question: What ensures consumer privacy?

I would never had thought the British would be so compliant in letting government monitor their every act. What happened to the Bulldog?

What Does ASHCROFT Do That Is Woirth ~2,500 Pounds Each Working Day?

Whenever I hear of a bloated friend of Cameron, a 'captain' of industry, getting outrageous remuneration, I roughly calculate is hourly rate.

This freeloader, assuming he gets [paid for Stat Vac(ations) works 52 weeks of 5 days which totals 260 days annually. Guessing this wonderkind puts in a full 7 hour day, this amounts to 080 hours annually, That means this robber scores 275.84 PER HOUR.

"Not fit for purpose"?

Where was her Kingston security cord?

Whenever I travel I always leave my Kingston security tether in place so when i have to wait around transportation terminals I can thread the cord through suitcase handles and still know all is safe (except at Heathrow where a Plod told me to carry them)..

At check in counters, I treat it like a dog leash - around my wrist.

Going through the X-ray machine I thread the tether through my jacket / coat sleeves to stop things disappearing.

When riding the Chiltern Line (great service) I place my laptop on the rack and keep the Kingston around my wrist. I can even snooze knowing all is safe.

Never lost a computer (or anything) in many decades of travel except when travelling with Air Canada when they managed to lose my checked baggage.

Murdoch, Fox, BSkyB have more worries than PirateBay

This crowd claim they have "billions of pounds in high-quality entertainment for our customers because we know how much our customers value it. It’s therefore important that companies like ours do what they can, alongside the government and the rest of the media and technology industries, to help protect their copyright."

One of the theirs are the Fox Studios in Hollywood, so the statement is somewhat self-serving.

What Murdoch should be concentrating on is the Chinese-sourced satellite encryption-cracking activity.

Whilst satellite receivers have to be licenced with the government in VietNam and the Peoples Police are quite proficient in spotting misdirected antennae - the licences only permit reception of Vietnamese owned satellites - there are substantial proliferation of cracked decoder cards all over the region - many viewers see forbidden / censored channels which must be costing the old man millions.

In some countries such as Cambodia or Laos they even have illicit signals hived into special channels so only favoured locals can see the channels.

Mind you, IMO, a lot of Murdoch programming is trash and not even worth the cost of a hot card.

It looks as ...

BSA numbers pure guesswork; Chinese numbers pipe dreams

I was in NanNing, GuangXi Province, China over the weekend and was, as usual, shopping in the electronics marts downtown (4-million population).

Copy CD/DVD were openly on sale; from all parts of the spectrum, movies and software. Some good looking Apple knock-offs, too, at a fraction of list prices.

I window shop Friday nights, place my orders on Saturday and all the stuff is ready to go first thing Sunday. (Deep stocks of copy software is stored way off site) No fuss, no muss. 555 timers were 2.7 cents each, genuine PIC and Altmel microcontrollers available at low prices, too, for a dollar or two.

As for BSA, they never visit some of the countries whose names they blacken. Laos and Cambodia have few computers and most of the copy ware is removed from VietNam government computers as they switched to Linux!

Re: SAP ... name rings a bell

SAP ... name rings a bell

Ah, just came back to me. The Senior VP of Talent Acquisition at SAP is Susan Bor, formerly an executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland who was allegedly very close to the Chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland .

So American software doesn't have backdoors?

With the penchant for government to get in to your pants and your brain, particularly the US Government, do you actually believe there are no backdoors around?

Maybe ZTE was stupid enough to leave an engineering access, but there again, they are not the first.

If you want security, go use your own devices to get it.

Or use two handsets, one for receiving a conversation and another for transmitting a conversation - using different networks for each really upsets Plod as they can't figure it. Better still, use a pager to set up calls.

Or,stretched on the ground, facing your talking partner, with hands covering the sides of your faces, you can really have a private conversation. (from an Al Qaida manual not allowed in the UK).

US Customs: No cell phone? That's evidence you are inbolved in crime!

I recently flew in to the USA, for which I have a passport, and the ever friendly ICE agent asks what I have on me. I said shaving kit and a set of clothes.

He asked about 'personal electronics'. I replied I have an MP3 player and a set of Sony noise cancelling headphones.

He starts tapping away on his computer - I already knew what my previous ICE interviews said through an access demand - and he said "Are toy aware you will be a "subject on interest" if you don;t have a cell phone? I said I stopped carrying data across borders when they started stealing laptops and phones.

I said last time his friend said I would be a subject of interest because I had no SIM. His friend also said I had to keep my cell charged so they could check it.

Looks line you're a "subject of interest" either way. Next time I'll carry my Mitsubishi - it only makes calks. Or my pager.

Patents - Apple needs the attribures of a centipede

Day Shift for Them; Night Shift for Us.

A few years ago I was deployed to China to assist a Canadian company set up a manufacturing line in China.

One night I had to work late, and the plant manager said No Problem, we work 24/7. I said why had he always insisted on working days only to which he replied that the Day Shift is for Customers and the Night Shift was for themselves.

Further discrete inquiries revealed that the production moulds used for for a Western customer had their identification / serialising modules replaced with blanks and the night production was used as knock-offs to compete with their Western customer.

Relief is spelt SEXTANT

The US Naval Academy announced that it was discontinuing its course on celestial navigation, considered to be one of its more demanding courses, from the formal curriculum in the spring of 1998 stating that a sextant is accurate to a three-mile (5 km) radius, So I guess only old sea dogs will be able to navigate around South Korea.

Or they could dig up an old Decca Navigator system, which woks in the VLF band and is more difficult to jam - good enough to be picked up by BOAC aircraft in the Cold War when they flew to Moscow.

Another Big Patch Day, and a Week of Start Up Repair Routines

I bought my wife an ASUS bouncy-bouncy (because it has now survived 19 counter-to-floor drops without damage) Eee PC which she uses for browsing for recipes and e-mail in the kitchen. Only a couple of programs loaded - Firefox and Irfan.

Then along comes Wednesday (we are one day ahead of Redmond), up pops the Update flag and once again the StartUp Repair kicks in.

Such fun. Normal service might be restored by Friday. It's enough to drive you to Linux.

What's the difference between LAPD or the Chicago Police and UK Plod?

Unfortunately, very little, it seems. In my distant childhood we were taught to trust the police, they could be relied upon. Our local Bobby had a bicycle, a ground floor office in his Police House and he welcomed visitors 24 hours a day.

Now the local Bobby has been replaced with anonymous people who are regarded as enemy and seem to be as crooked as many of their clients.

The 24-hour news cycle doesn't help, a few tenners or twenties here and there. gets the breaking news.

Even worse are the instances of disclosures of files or data, this requires a concious breach of the system.

You can't trust many priests who might involve a child in a sexual abuse situation. One priest I knew of left his car outside his church supplied vicarage. The church bookkeeper was always suspicious of mileage claims and he would take a stroll past the vicarage and, using a torch, would carefully note the speedo readings. Sure enough, even this preacher was ripping off the church.

Yes, parents are faced with many imponderables these days and they are a sad commentary on today's society.

I don't blame the newspaper industry, they are not paid to be honest. The whole matter centre on problems with police, who enjoy privileges under law that few others have.

If not the 19 inch standard, then why not the 23 inch standard?

The 19-inch (482.6 mm) rack claims their origin as mounting systems for rail-road (railway) signalling relays, It has served many industries well. It's even used in ships.

If this minor league server centre player is unhappy about 19 inches, why not switch to the 23-inch (580 mm) standard which even the EU recognises as the ETSI rack, relating to the European Telecoms Standards Institute.

The vertical spacing is identical and the 19 inch adapter pates are commonly available.

China unites former enemies

The USA, Philippines and VIETNAM have just completed naval exercises near the Spratly Islands - VietNam's name for the islands it claims - although China thinks it owns the whole bloody South China Sea including the parts within VN's 200 mile zone.

There's oil out there and now VN has found gas in it's area. Little wonder the USA is around.

LG only advertises fridges and washers in Indochina market

Ne'er a word about LG TV's or handsets around here.

Their household products are extremely good and super easy on the electric meters. HTC and Samsung rule the handset market, Nokia is still picking up business in the low end for now - cheap Chinese cells are on their way.

Why should anyone expect the Home Office not to be clueless ...

when they are headed by one of the dumbest ministers and likely there only so Cameron can claim to be a equal opportunity man, except the equal opportunity is supposed to refer to gender not the employment of cretins.

The Tories condemned, and dispatched, the National ID Card proposed by Labour, then they follow this up with Plod's Number Plate Photography System. Now this GCHQ proposal which is much more intrusive than an ID card.

The USA has demonstrated that mass communications slurping doesn't work, so why should the UK waste more money on the scheme?